Chapter 1:
"So…. this is where you grew up?" Tali asked as she and Shepard disembarked from their Kodiak transport shuttle. In their arms, each of them had what was left of their belongings. Shepard's two duffel bags were stuffed full of datapads, classic hardback paper books, and… clothes. She still found it weird that humans insisted on having so many different outfits. Still, when you could change your entire attire whenever you wanted without risking a fatal illness, you probably tended to have a more extensive wardrobe. Tali, meanwhile, had all of her belongings in a small backpack slung across her shoulders. It consisted of tools and spare parts for suit maintenance and a few tubes of Flotilla standard nutrient paste, enough to last her a couple of weeks until she could acquire a reliable source of sterilized food. This was all she owned. She hadn't even had time to collect the personal belongings she had left on the Neema when she had been…
The Quarian shook her head to dispel the intrusive thoughts that threatened to creep in once again and focused on the present, which arguably wasn't much better. A pair of guards were walking towards them across the landing pad's asphalt, with Counsellor David Anderson following along. Behind them, Tali had a clear view of the mega city of Vancouver, the home of Alliance's military headquarters. The description that Shepard had given her of the city was fairly accurate so far. Vancouver was a forest of towering pillars of glass and steel, and the inner Vancouver harbor formed a river right down its middle. Tali had only ever seen so many people on the Citadel and Illium, but Tali would have compared Vancouver more to Omega than anywhere else. It was overcast and looked like it would rain at any moment. The lack of open sunlight gave the whole place a hollow, lifeless feeling that she had only ever seen on the pirate-infested asteroid.
Of course, that just meant that the scenery matched the dreariness of what was going on.
" you for coming. That makes things a lot easier." Anderson said as he finally came to a stop in front of them. His eyes flicked over to meet Tali's for a brief moment before turning their gaze back onto her boyfriend. "Of course… I did recommend that you only bring former Alliance members."
And besides her, Shepard did. Behind their own shuttle, several more Kodiaks were touching down and disgorging their own occupants. Joker, Kenneth Donnely, Gabby Daniels, Kelly Chambers, Dr. Chakwas, and all the other crewmembers who weren't on the ground team were all turning themselves in with their Commander. Shepard stepped forward and held his hands up to the guards flanking Anderson. "Tali's situation is… complicated," he said.
"Oh, is it?" Anderson asked with an amused but exasperated smile on his face. "Shepard, the reason why Hackett and I specified former Alliance members is because we have legal jurisdiction over them. Since a lot of them are still Alliance citizens, we have justification for holding them. Tali's a Quarian. We're doing all we can to legally justify not extraditing you and your crew to the Hegemony, but we have no claim to hold Tali!"
The guards clicked their handcuffs onto Shepard's wrists. They were the older metal kind rather than the contemporary hard light design used everywhere else in the galaxy. Tali wasn't sure if that was due to a budget problem within the Alliance's MP core or if it was intentional due to the psychological effect of the older restraint version. Something about hearing the snap of the metallic cuffs made Tali's stomach churn. Anderson continued to speak, momentarily wincing at the sound of his former XO being arrested.
"It would have been better if she had simply slipped back to the Flotilla. There's no way that the Batarians would go to war with the whole Migrant Fleet over an engineer, not to mention that she'd have had plausible deniability."
Shepard opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by Tali. "I can't go back to the fleet."
Anderson turned to regard her with a look of surprise. "What do you mean?"
Shepard was looking at her with concern. He leaned over towards Tali's helmet, the guards 'restraining' him, letting him shift in their grip. It was clear that they were following their orders only as far as they needed to. "You don't have to talk about it now if you aren't ready."
"It's ok." Tali tapped her helmet gently against Shepard's forehead and turned to face the human Counsellor again.
"I was exiled."
—-
"Damn politics," Anderson muttered as he took a sip of his coffee. Shepard and the rest of the crew had been taken to a separate part of the building for inmate processing while Anderson had taken Tali aside to talk with her privately. They were currently sitting in his office sharing a drink. While Anderson was staring into his cup, processing her story, Tali herself was watching the rain beat against the large wall-spanning window behind the former Captain that framed the cityscape beyond. Apparently, the 'bottom had fallen out,' as Anderson had put it, and the city was now being drenched in Earth's waters. Strange that something necessary for life could look so bleak when it arrived.
"I still don't get why you just didn't give them the evidence, but I suppose Quarian family bonds must be stronger than human ones," Anderson said after he had drained his cup.
"Stronger than anyone else's," Tali said, straightening her back and speaking with pride. Still, despite the bravado in her voice, the words rang hollow in Tali's ears. She felt… brittle saying it and desperately hoped that Anderson wouldn't try to argue otherwise.
Anderson cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her but refused to comment on the obvious contradiction. Instead, he mercifully changed the subject. "Well, we are where we are. And we are going to have to find a way to keep you hidden and away from the Batarians. I'll talk with the brass about what should be done, but rest assured, we aren't going to sell you out. You did a great service to us helping defeat Saren, and we aren't going to toss you aside just because it might be politically convenient."
Tali's chest ached at the human's words, and she chose to ignore the obvious passive aggression jab against the admiralty board. It hurt too much to think that another government would value her more than her own…
Tali blinked a couple of times, forcing the thoughts out of her mind. "Thank you Counsellor-"
"Anderson. We're long past formalities now Tali."
"Uh, okay. Thank you… Anderson." Tali murmured shyly, her cheeks flushing red at the paternal affection in his voice. It was unlike anything she had ever heard directed toward her before. "So what now?"
"Hmmm… I have an idea." Anderson turned to power on his office's terminal and began to sift through its files. "We're planning on retrofitting the Normandy. Cerberus design aside its a damn good ship-"
"One of the best ever built! Silaris Armor, Thannix Canons, multicore shielding, a state of the art GARDIAN point defense system, and a Tantalus Drive Core three times larger than what a ship that size even needs. Its probably the most advanced stealth ship in the galaxy!" Tali blurted out. Even though she may not have been part of the Migrant Fleet anymore, the mere mention of the Normandy's technological marvels still caused her to geek out at the work of engineering artwork.
"Not to mention the ship's… unique VI." Anderson finished. "Not a lot of people in the Alliance know what EDI actually is. Only me and Hackett really. The regs state that VI's of non-Alliance origin need to be thoroughly vetted before use on Alliance ships. Originally, we had planned on fudging the paperwork a bit and making it look like the inspections had been done without anyone actually doing it. Now, however, we have a Quarian on site. A person who's species are experts in synthetic intelligences."
"You want me to play the role of an Alliance inspector? How would that even work?" Tali gestured to herself. "I'm not human, and no offense, but your species isn't the most tolerant. Do you really think the Alliance would be ok with an alien working on their newly acquired state-of-the-art warship?"
"I do, actually," Anderson said, steepling his fingers. "Remember, the original Normandy was a collaborative project between the Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy. Now I will admit that a lot of humans are unjustly suspicious of Quarians, but there are a lot of others who aren't. From what I've heard you're even dating one."
Tali felt her cheeks heat up at that last comment, and she sputtered out a dumbfounded reply. "He told you?"
A small smile crossed Anderson's face. "Of course he did! You've made him a very happy man, and I've long before he joined the Alliance. Do you really think he wouldn't tell me about a serious romantic relationship like this?"
"He-He's serious about us?" Tali asked with no small amount of glee lacing her voice.
"Very." Anderson said before returning his hands to his terminal's keyboard. "But back to the topic at hand. The Alliance has employed alien contractors in the past. We've had to in order to close the technological gap between us and the rest of the Council species. It'd take a bit of paperwork, but I can get you clearance to work on the Normandy. All you need to do is give me your signature."
Anderson finished typing, reached into his desk's drawer, and pulled out a datapad. He handed it to Tali, who cocked her head in confusion at it. Most intergalactic treaties use biometric scans as a form of consent in a legal contract. Suited species usually displayed their biometric signatures via their omnitool to accomplish this, but this time, there didn't appear to be any way to scan her information into the document. "Uhhh… How do I activate the bio scan?"
"Oh no, you sign your name to give consent," Anderson said. Tali did a double take.
"My name? Isn't that a bit… antiquated?" Tali asked as she reluctantly traced her name with her finger in Keelish onto the hard light datapad.
"It kinda is, but it's how we do things on Earth," Anderson responded as he accepted the datapad back. "There! Now, all I have to do is get my team to fill out the rest of the paperwork, and you'll officially be a part of the retrofit team."
"That's good," Tali said slightly despondently. "D-do you think it'd be ok if I went to go see Shepard. I'd hate for him to be stuck in a prison cell all alone."
Anderson chuckled at her comment. "Tali we're not throwing the hero of the battle of the citadel in lockup."
—-
"So this is what house arrest looks like," Tali muttered to herself as she hit the shut button on the front door behind her. Shepard's new quarters consisted of a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a fully furnished kitchen and living room. It wasn't fancy by any means, but to the Quarian in question, it might as well have been a luxury hotel room. On the Flotilla, only captains got their own private bedroom and only a bedroom. They most certainly didn't get kitchens or bathrooms all to themselves. No matter how many times she found herself amongst aliens, Tali continuously found herself shocked by their standard of living. When she had been on the migrant fleet, she only had a small cot and a corresponding personal storage locker to call her own…
And now she didn't even have that anymore.
She gave herself a small impromptu tour of the apartment while she was unloading what few of her belongings that remained in her possession. It took less than three minutes. After she finished, she sat down on a chair next to the kitchen table to take a short break. She'd turn on the TV to see what was on the news in a little bit, but, for now, she just wanted to take a break. SHe turned her attention towards the nearby rain soaked window. It didnt take long for her to get lost in the myriad of water droplets racing down the glass. She had never seen it before… She didn't have this back… home…
The sound of her boyfriend sitting down in the chair beside her brought her out of her introspections. She turned her gaze away from the rain-spattered kitchen window that she had been staring at for…
She glanced up at the chrono on her helmet's heads-up display. It read 6:30.
She had been looking out at the rain-soaked city for two hours and hadn't even realized it. Now that she finally took a second to look at her surroundings she could see that it was indeed darker outside. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
"Hey Tali are you alright?" Shepard asked with no small amount of worry in his voice.
"Y-yeah I'm fine." Her mouth felt dry. She turned to meet the human's eyes. The deep pools of sky blue were filled with concern for her. "Really Shepard, I'm ok."
Shepard scooted his chair closer to hers. "Its only been a couple of weeks since your exile, and you haven't had a lot of time to process what happened. What with the Collector base, the Shadow Broker, Project Overlord, the Bahak…"
Shepard clenched his jaw. "What I'm getting at is that we've been running all over the galaxy putting out fires. You should take some time to heal and rest."
Tali shook her head. "I'm on the retrofit team for the Normandy."
Shepard furrowed his brows in confusion. "What?"
"The Normandy's getting retrofit-"
"I know that. I mean, since when are you taking part in it?"
"Since Anderson set me up as a… umm what did he call it… a contractor? Yeah thats right. Since he hired me as a contractor to work on EDI's systems and get them up to Alliance code." Tali said before getting up, and heading over to the nearby fridge. Being brought out of her catatonic state had made her realize how hungry she really was. The Quarian took out a tube of nutrient paste and plugged it into her helmet port. She might as well have some dinner while talking to her boyfriend. She took a couple of large gulps of the flavorless paste before speaking again. "From what he said, I start tomorrow with the rest of the retrofit team."
Shepard let out an exasperated sigh. He got up, crossed the small span of the distance between them, and placed both his hands on her helmet, angling it up to look him directly in the eyes. Tali's dinner hung from her helmet's port, wobbling slightly like a limp pool noodle. "I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to bury yourself in work to avoid focusing on what happened."
Tali wanted to deny it. She wanted to snap at Shepard for making assumptions about her and her mental state. Instead, she hung her head. "I spent two hours staring out a window today. Doing nothing. I didn't even realize you came into the room until you sat down next to me."
"And thats okay. You've been through something traumatic. It's natural for you to be experiencing these emotions." He hugged her. "What you need to be focusing on right now is taking some time for yourself. If that means doing some engineering or coding with the retrofit team, go for it. But if you'd rather do something else like say… watch a movie, go for a walk, or even stare at a window then you should let yourself do that."
Tali grinned as she buried her head into the crook of her boyfriend's neck. The motion squeezed more paste into her mouth, which both she and her tummy graciously accepted. When the stream of food finally subsided she spoke."Thanks Shepard. For now… I think I'd like to go to bed."
She looked up at him. "I'd also like if you joined me after you've eaten."
Tali, truth be told, wasn't in the mood for sex. But it felt nice to have someone with you…
To not be alone.